By Mark Howell

The announcement from Dallas, Texas, was as curt as an airport announcement: “Key West International Airport (EYW), Jackson Branson Airport (BKG), and Jackson-Evers International Airport (JAN) will leave the Southwest network on June 7, 2014.”

 

 

Southwest had begun its service to Jackson-Evers International in 1997. The airline then added Branson and finally Key West to its southern route map in 2012 as part of an integration with AirTran, its wholly-owned subsidiary.

 

 

“Unfortunately, the level of local demand no longer allows Southwest to profitably serve these markets,” said Bob Jordan, a Southwest executive VP.

 

“We’re disappointed,” Peter Horton, Key West’s airport director, tells Konk Life. “We thought they were doing OK and they thought they were doing well but now they think they can do better elsewhere. So they’re moving their crews and planes.”

 

 

Most airlines have been doing well over the past two years, added Horton, “And Southwest has never had an unprofitable year.”

 

 

But he began to be concerned when Southwest recently added New Orleans to its route. From Key West to New Orleans and back linked two southern resorts when in fact Key West’s real market is with the northeast. The New Orleans link served only to reduce the local-load factor aboard the planes to 60 percent, which served to lower the overall performance for Southwest to 70 percent. Baltimore would have been a better choice. Or Memphis. So Horton counseled against the extra route but, he says, “it’s hard to second-guess a multimillion airline and they made their choice. We didn’t.”

 

 

Now in its 42nd year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines continues to carry more than 100 million customers annually, is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating passengers boarded and operates the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the world.

 

 

To find another airline for Key West International, Horton has hired a consultant, Mike Mooney of Sixel, with whom he’s worked for ten years. The last time involved Marathon Airport in 2003-04. Together they garnered a federal grant of $750,000 to lure Delta and Continental to the mid-Keys, underused airport. That plan, with two contracts actually signed, was only scuttled by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that claimed it didn’t have a budget to cover two airlines. Delta hung in but Continental baled. Delta lasted for a while by using the Partnership Screening Program (PSP) for security and screening, a private organization vetted by the TSA that serves only a few small airports in the U.S. (including Key West, by the way).

 

 

With Mike Mooney and Sixell on board as service and development consultants, strategies are now being devised and the search is on for a low-cost carrier to serve Key West. “The e-mails have been flying this week,” said Horton. A low-cost carrier like Southwest is the most desirable. “It’s good for locals and it’s good for visitors. And when more people fly, it’s great for airports.”

 

 

Horton has been airport director since 1999 and aims to retire in June, 2015.

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